The Hazel Project

“fifty bucks” I say,

He’s off to get his tools still talking,

“Pull your car around the corner in front of the UPS truck around the corner from this liquor store right here,”
“It’s marked yellow” I interrupt,”it’s ok, it’s ok I do it all the time and no 1 gets ticket no one does stephen yes yes pull right around my friend right around the corner.

I pull in front of the UPS truck and get the side moulding strips out of my trunk, really excited about how he’s going to backpedal his way out putting them on.

He shows up with not a tool box but a BOX box. A cardboard box full of flammable solvents rags and other inhalents that had better street value than what I was going to pay him to use properly.

He begins to tell me about his family. I sit down and engage him while he takes out a tool that looks like something my Grandfather would use to do wood working. He jams it into my car door huffing, sweating and really trying to get hold of something with enough leverage to pull the 2 year old dent out. It doesn’t work. So he holds his breath and jabs it in my car door 4 more times. Now my dent is not only uglier but dangerous because it has a bunch of metal burrs sticking up where he made holes.

He tells me he’s from back East and wants to know why on earth I moved to L.A. from North Carolina. I begin a retrofitted explanation as he manages to pull the dent out a little. He explains in his culture women get married earlier than “my people” and how family life is so important.

He rips off part of the solvent box and opens up a can of putty. He catches himself and says ooo ooo “I have to get sandpaper its in the car. Stay right here stay right here.” He comes back with several sheets of different grade sand paper and explains in careful detail about how important it is to use the right grade.

Apparently the right grade was 1 below “asphalt” and started to sand the metal burrs down scarring the door 10 times worse than it was.

Flakes of paint, rust and metal are hitting the curb as he’s telling me about how he hates it in L.A. That it’s changed too much, and the middle class is gone. He finally runs out of things to say and he smears the putty all over my door.

The street is now a huffer’s paradise from all the putty. He lets it dry for 90 seconds fanning it with another piece of “tool box” with one hand and starts shaking up a can of black spray paint in the other.
He keeps talking about his 12 kids or something while he sprays short bursts of paint all over my car door. It’s running down the side, but it looked better than rust. By this time it was right at 30 minutes and I remind him of the mouldings. These side mouldings were held on by two adhesive strips that melted off in any heat about 65 degrees.
There are no screw holes. I’ve seen some VW’s with missing moulding where it looked like they tried to put them back on with tar.

Thankfully, Steve didn’t have any tar.

“ohhhhhh I cant put those on look look those are done see see the sticky parts done and they’re all warped you can throw them away my friend throw them away they’re done. I can’t, those are finished my friend yes yes throw them away.

By this time I’m ready to leave, disappointed he didn’t try harder to put on the side mouldings, I say.

“Okay $35 for the dent in the door since you can’t put on the side mouldings.”

“Listen you know what I do, you know what I do for you is hammer out these wheel well dents, How did this happen?”

Before I could ask “what dents?”

He has retrieved his only other tool, besides inhalents and the wrong looking dent puller, which was a ball-pien hammer knocking the hell out of my wheel wells.

“You gotta fix these you gotta fix these they’ll puncture your tire they will you’re lucky I saw them yes?”

I said again “$35, for the dent in the door”

and he walks up to me with hammer in hand and looks at my face and says,” look I’m just an honest guy trying to feed my kids, and get a present for nieces wedding. Ok Ok I saved you $500 look at it look at it at how much I saved you”

I look at the shiny mismatched black paint running down the side of my door getting high from the smell of putty and paint, and say slowly,

“Will you take a North Carolina check?”

Knowing the answer but thought I’d try it.

“no no no I can’t take checks can’t take em ATM in the liqour store only charges fifty cents ATM right in there ok, you go and get the cash and I wait for you don’t worry I’ll wait. I gotta put the tools away.”

How kind he was to wait for me to pay to get money.

I WILL NOT PAY AN ATM FEE!

I think so loudly I must’ve yelled it.

By the way,
This liquor store was like the one in Raleigh on Peace st. that says in the marqui,

“Large enough to serve you, Small enough to know you.”

Except this liquor store was called “Bert’s”

Anyway, I try to cobble together some items to get cash back. I see a sign DEBIT $10 or more. So I get a L.A. Times, gum and a bottle of Pinot Noir.

Another Indian at the counter whose accent was so entact I could barely tell he was speaking English says, “is this al ?l”

I say “cash back please”

“No cash back no cash back must use ATM fifty cent fee.”

waving his hand over to a kiosk by the door.

After juggling cards and trying to remember a pin number that might work. I get cash buy the paper and gum and hand Steve fifty bucks who is patiently waiting by the door looking out in the parking lot for the next hustle opportunity.

I walk back to my car, and notice that Steve left the piece of cardboard box with putty smeared all over it for a huffer to enjoy later.

“Everything is one.” I think to myself and drive my newly ‘repaired’ VW home glad to experience a slice of L.A. hustle for only $50.

Thanks for checking in everyone.

Stephen A. Thomas

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 5:51 pm and is filed under on the path, posts & stories . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.